Chapter 5 five

Ten years ago, in the winter of 1932, I was an officer under Su Bingwen, a famous anti-Japanese general in Northeast China after September 18th. My position was a staff officer.In the winter of this year, we fought the last battle against the Japanese bandits at Zhalantun on the Middle East Road, and our main force was completely lost, so we retreated along the railway until we reached Manchuria, the border between China and Russia. At this time, the troops of Generals Ma Zhanshan and Li Du also retreated along the Middle East Road, and their destination was also Manzhouli.They encountered the Japanese pursuers in Bohuotu and Xing'anli, fought the last battle, completed the cover task, and allowed the main force to reach Manchuria safely.

In this way, Manzhouli became the gathering center for volunteers from all walks of life in the Northeast.Since September 18th, these brave fighters have been dealing with the Japanese invaders, but it is a pity that there is no replenishment, no backup, and finally have to retreat on a large scale.Leading their retreat were generals Ma Zhanshan, Li Du, and Su Bingwen who returned from Europe in the future. When we arrived in Manchuria, after negotiating with the Russian side, we were allowed to live in Siberia temporarily.At this time, the Japanese invaders tried every means to get our group back, especially Ma, Li, and Su.In order to avoid unexpected troubles from the Japanese invaders, the authorities hid us in Tomsk, Siberia: a remote place.It takes more than a week to get there by train.

When the train passed by on the Siberian prairie, I looked through the thick glass window, and there was a silvery white everywhere.Boundless snow and ice cover everything.Looking at this large snowfield, I can't help but think of the history of the Siberian Railway construction. It is said that two hundred years ago, one day, Peter the Great was walking in the palace and saw sunlight coming in from the window. He suddenly thought: only with windows can there be sunlight and fresh air flow in.My great empire is cold and dark because it has no windows.I must open a window to my great empire!His so-called Empire Window means an ice-free estuary to the sea.

He picked up a large map and studied it carefully.He looked at the Western European part for a while, shook his head, and sighed: If I want to find an outlet from the Baltic Sea, I don't have a share now.His eyes turned to the Asian part, and finally he stared hard at Vladivostok: this is a very good eastern sea port. He smiled smugly. Not long after he laughed, shadows appeared on his face.Looking melancholy at the vast prairie of Siberia on the map, he thought: How can we get to Vladivostok through this boundless wilderness? He thought for a long time, but couldn't think of a way.Finally, he angrily picked up a quill and drew a blue straight line on the map: from Moscow to Vladivostok.After finishing the painting, he said to himself slightly angrily:

Let me fly from this straight line to Vladivostok in my dream! Some years later, Peter the Great died.Those who studied the emperor's manuscript found this map and saw this blue straight line.They studied for a long time, and finally came to a conclusion: the emperor must have dreamed of realizing a route to Vladivostok. Don't let the emperor's dream down!This is the unanimous opinion of the ministers. So, one hundred and eighty years later, this blue straight line drawn casually on the map with a quill pen finally turned into two steel rails thousands of miles away. This is the history of the Siberian Railway construction!

Although Siberia is cold, it is a very interesting place. Let me tell you an interesting story first. If you are Chinese, you must have heard of Ulagrass, one of the three treasures of Northeast China.This kind of ulagrass is even more numerous in Siberia.They have been growing and dying for thousands of years.The dead grass and the rotting grass roots are spread on the ground layer by layer, intertwined with each other, and finally melted into soil to form the surface layer of the ground.Because it is made of grass roots, the soil on the surface of the ground is also very soft, like a large piece of sponge tens of feet thick, hanging in the air leisurely, soft and elastic; Everything seemed to vibrate, inside and out, as if dancing on the sofa bed.This situation is especially serious in the area of ​​Lake Baikal. Do you think it is interesting?It can be seen from this: the engineers who built the Siberian Railway back then spent so much effort and racked their brains to overcome this difficulty!

Let me tell you another interesting fact about Siberia: According to archaeologists and geologists, tens of thousands of years ago, there was a kind of ancient giant elephant in the area connecting Europe and Asia. They retreated northward with the glaciers. When they arrived in Siberia, they could not move forward because of too many swamps. The giant elephant finally sank into the extremely cold muddy swamp and froze to death in the perennial snow and ice.Although these giant elephants have passed through tens of thousands of years, they are still well preserved by natural large refrigerators.Not only the flesh, skin, and fur of giant elephants, but also the undigested food in their stomachs, is also well preserved, like bunches of moss, grass, calamus, and wild thyme, even unchewed in their mouths. .Therefore, after many Siberian farmers discovered these giant elephants, they cut off large pieces of their red meat and fed them to dogs. Isn't it interesting?

Gossip less, get down to business. After more than ten days of journey, (we took a military vehicle and walked very slowly.) We finally arrived in Tomsk.Tomsk is an extremely remote area. The Trans-Siberian Railway has a special branch line to reach here, and the industry and commerce are still developed.Its location is on the banks of the Tom River, a tributary of the Ob River, west of Lake Baikal and east of the Ural Mountains.In western Siberia, it can be regarded as the nearest big city to the Arctic Sea.In terms of its cold climate, even if we call it the Arctic region, it is not too much.

It was winter when we arrived in Tomsk.This is really a most unlucky thing. People who have not been to Tomsk, you can never imagine the cold here.The average temperature in winter is often below minus 40 degrees. To describe the coldness here, it is useless to use abstract nouns. Now I will only tell you two small things. 1. Once, a soldier dug up a spoonful of hot porridge and went to the gate to eat it.He opened his mouth wide, put the spoon into his mouth, put it down for a while, and when he tried to take it out again, the spoon seemed to be stuck with his tongue. ice flakes. 2. It is like spitting outdoors. When a piece of phlegm falls on the ground, it has changed from mucus to ice and shatters on the ground, as if a piece of magnetism has been broken.

The weather in Tomsk is so cold that when people go out, they must smear a thick layer of Vaseline on their faces, wear a thick fur hat on their heads, and wear a thick fur coat with an old goatskin collar on their bodies. Its thick, spiral-shaped fur and its feet are covered with a kind of felt.This kind of felt bump is sewn from felt wool, the boots have a high waist, and the inside of the boots is thick fur, which covers the legs and feet like a small upside-down house.Just wearing this kind of thick boots, people usually can't spend more than half an hour outdoors.After half an hour, the cold air of the ice and snow on the ground will pass through the thick bootskin and thick hair, directly piercing the soles of the feet, causing the blood to stagnate gradually, and finally become stiff and paralyzed.If you are not careful and make a big fuss, your feet will freeze to death.To avoid this danger, those who walk the streets divide their journeys into several sections.After walking for a while, go to someone's house to have a rest, warm up by the fire, and wait until the boots are warmed before leaving.In Tomsk, every household has a smiling face and unconditionally welcomes pedestrians to come in and enjoy the fire.Not just to warm boots, but to dissolve Vaseline.After walking outdoors for a long time, Vaseline has frozen on the face, which is very uncomfortable. After baking by the stove, it becomes smooth again.

Although Tomsk is so cold, the scenery is very beautiful.It belongs to the plateau area, surrounded by forests and mountains.They undulate and stretch like the ocean, which is very spectacular.The urban area of ​​Tomsk is not a flat land. Looking from outside the city, it looks like an isolated island in a sea of ​​forests and mountains.Even though there are houses, smoke, lamps, fire, industry and commerce here, in the eyes of travelers, it is still just a flower outside the garden of the world, a flower without color and fragrance. Tomsk's best production: horses.The horses here are taller than ordinary people and extremely majestic. One thing Tomsk is most proud of: education.There are many primary and secondary schools here.And there are national universities and museums.Decades ago, it is said that the great writer Tolstoy spent part of his writing life here.In order to spread the religious gospel and new ideals in his later years, he devoted himself to cultural undertakings here, which had a great influence on the local residents.Therefore, the city is also known as the literary and educational center of Siberia. Perhaps influenced by Tolstoy's humanitarianism, some residents here are particularly kind, compassionate, and benevolent, which makes a great impression on foreign travelers.Tolstoy's kind heart seems to have sown thousands of kind hearts. After arriving here, what we suffer the most is the cold.We have too many people, nearly 20,000 people. Except for Ma Lisu and other commanders who can allocate single rooms, the houses where ordinary officers and soldiers live are naturally very crowded.These houses, called Balak in Russian, are houses similar to barracks.During the last European war, Austrian prisoners lived here.This Barak has two floors, and the building is very simple. The upper floor is considered an upper floor, and I live on the upper floor.It is divided into several large rooms.I'm a high-ranking military officer, and most of my roommates are colonels, so there aren't many people living there.Underneath are lower-level cadres and military officers, and there are almost 400 people in one period.In such a huge room, there are only two very small stoves, which are made of small foreign oil barrels, and firewood is burned inside. It's about ten degrees, so you can tell it's cold. Sometimes, it was too cold at night, and I often couldn't sleep. I sat all night until dawn, and then fell asleep after the sun came out. Cold has become central to our lives these days.Soldiers ran outside all day long and went up the mountain to cut firewood in order to resist the cold.Everyone hides under the quilt during the day, also to resist the cold.There were many officers, with their retinues, and plenty of flour, and the wives sat around the fire all day, busy making cakes, but only to stuff them up against the cold. cold!cold!cold!cold!cold!cold!These two words are our enemy and our friend.Call it the enemy, because we are at war with it all day long.Said to be friends, because we have no closer existence except it.It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a friend. Doesn't it stick with us all day long? When I mentioned pancakes earlier, I couldn't help but think of a very poor thing.You know, the stove is not very empty during the day, and it is often full of people. It is not until night that it is relatively quiet. There are a few people who only wait for this time to make pancakes.I lived upstairs, and to urinate at night I had to go downstairs and walk by the fire.The pancake bakers were all acquaintances. When they saw me passing by, they couldn't help but suspect that I used urination as an excuse, hoping they would pull me to take a few bites of pancakes.In order not to arouse their suspicions, some nights, when it was time to urinate, I often forcibly endured it, and did not go downstairs until dawn. One day I wrote the following in my diary: Last night Mr. and Mrs. N and Mrs. T. were both sick, and instead of making pancakes by the fire, I was able to go downstairs to relieve myself.This is the first thing worth mentioning since I came to Tomsk. Besides the cold, the second worrying thing is the lack of news.We are like sardines, tightly sealed in cans, cut off from the outside world. Among us, because I know Russian, I can read some news from Russian newspapers, but there is almost no news about China and Northeast China.As for the news from South Korea, it is even more unknown.At this time, China and Russia had not formally resumed diplomatic relations, and all the letters we sent to the customs were forwarded by the authorities, and their trustworthiness was very limited. There is no news, everything is cut off, we don't know how long we will stay in this cold and snowy area, how can we not be anxious? To distract myself from my troubles, I often spend my days at the local library.During this period, I read a lot of literature and art books, and I felt that I was like a prisoner who had been sentenced to death and was advancing to the execution ground. As each day passed, I was getting closer to the execution ground. When I wake up from the cold in the middle of the night, I often sink into memories. I deeply miss my motherland, my hometown on the other side of the Yalu River.In my hometown, winter is not very cold.In spring, bright red rhododendrons bloom everywhere in the field, which is too beautiful to remember. In addition to reading books in the library these days, what occupies most of my time is memory.In other words, I often walk into the grave of memories, talk and play with the dead.When there are only memories left in a person's life, although it is beautiful enough, it is also painful enough.Only the elderly love to recall, because the future they can keep is very little. Only in the past can they feel a kind of glory, a kind of pride, and a kind of complacency.I am only about 30 years old, how can I have the courage to give up the future and completely be friends with the past? So I fell into pain. Fortunately, an unexpected event happened not long ago, which can also be said to be an unexpected happiness, which temporarily relieved me from pain.